Back in 1999 I remember picking up the original Homeworld. It was a fresh take on real-time strategy as it was set in space, meaning you had to deal with threats in three dimensions rather than the more common and decidedly pedestrian two. It also had wonderful Chris Foss inspired spaceship designs as well as a beautifully evocative musical score courtesy of Paul Ruskay, not to mention a surprisingly cogent narrative. So when Gearbox Software bought the rights for the series a few years back I could not wait until it would be re-released again. Well the wait is over and the Homeworld Remastered Collection is finally here.
Containing a total of five games, it features remastered versions of both Homeworld and Homeworld 2 and an all-new multiplayer game that mixes all the games into one melting pot. Homeworld purists also have access to the original games as they were initially released, which is a nice touch.
Much of the attention has been lavished on the remastered versions though and after playing through them a fair amount, including finishing the first game, I can happily say that Gearbox Software has done an excellent job.
The remastered games are actually using a modified version of the Homeworld 2 engine and this is both a good and a bad thing. Good for the graphical fidelity as well the new version of Homeworld 2 but functional problems start to occur with the first game.
Thankfully the main space pirate mentality of the first game has mostly remained intact. Specifically that the salvage corvettes are still king, as you use them to reinforce your fleet with stolen enemy ships.
That said there are a lot of little and some major disparities compared to the classic version. For example in the original Homeworld you could set units to guard a ship in a spherical formation with the guarded ship in the center. This was a handy setup to have later in the game as you could place a large number of captured ships around your mothership, cocooning it in relative safety. This no longer works and the formation places itself off to the side, making it a lot less useful in terms of strategy.
Another more major change is how carriers can no longer act as a base for your salvage corvettes to offload captured ships.
The latter may sound minor but on the Bridge of Sighs level trying to capture all the surrounding ion frigates takes an age as they all have to go back to your mothership, which can’t be moved, rather than the nearest carrier.
While this reduction of carrier options can slow the game down one major improvement in time saving is that resources are automatically collected at the end of each mission. That massively helps the pacing and is actually a rather welcome change over the classic version.
So on the whole there are a veritable litany of various functional changes that add up to a strange but still compelling result.
In that even with these changes you can still work your way through the campaign with broadly the same strategy as you did back in the day. That is no mean feat to accomplish on the part of any developer tasked with remaking a classic such as this.
The important thing to understand is that regardless of the changes in the move to remaster the first game it is still amazing to play.
Visually both the remastered games look incredible, including all the cutscsenes. As these have now been re-done to a much higher fidelity, it's clear a lot of work has clearly gone into this collection. The music and audio have also been remixed and they sound superb as well.
Even if you feel put out by the changes in the remastered versions, you still have the classic games. These are a nice option to have, as the old copies no longer run on many modern operating systems. Unfortunately it seems my old saves for the first game are sadly incompatible at present, as the game crashes on load when I try to boot them up. Naturally you can play through with new saves just fine but I still want to fire up my old epic fleet and take it for a spin again. What's more the old multiplayer modes are also absent in both classic games, as this is due to the new separate multiplayer mode included in the collection.
This new multiplayer mode uses the remastered engine and ships from the two games and places them all together. This means the Kushan, Taidan, Hiigaran and Vaygr can all square off against one another. As a result the general balancing for multiplayer has now become somewhat awkward, with the Kushan and Taidan being at a bit of a disadvantage compared to the more advanced Higaran and Vaygr units.
Admittedly this new multiplayer mode is currently in beta, so it’s clear Gearbox Software will likely resolve many of these balancing issues given time. Especially as they seem to be listening to the community's feedback on the various problems people seem to be having in more competitive matches.
This is not to say that the multiplayer isn’t a lot of fun already but it’s got a ways to go before it’s as coherent as the original games were.
Despite the functional oddities in the remastered Homeworld, the remaining fault of this collection is what it omits. While both Homeworld and Homeworld 2 form the backbone of the series, the absence of Homeworld Cataclysm from this collection is a sad one.
While there are rumors that the source code has been lost it sounds like there is more to this than is being revealed. Whatever the true reasons behind Cataclysm’s omission from this collection, I just hope they are resolved quickly. As I simply want to play it again.
Overall then, even with the changes to the remastered Homeworld and early beta balancing issues in the multiplayer this is an exemplary collection of games. If you’ve never played any of the Homeworld series before then you have no excuse not to now.
It’s rare to get such a pure PC game released in this day and age, even if it is a remake. Gearbox Software has done a brilliant job and fans should happily support that, if only to play one of the greatest series of real-time strategy games yet again.
Homeworld Remastered Collection
Platforms: PC
Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: Gearbox Software
Released: February 25th, 2015
Price: $34.99
Rating: 8/10
Disclosure: I bought both the Steam version and Collector’s Edition with my own money. I completed the remastered Homeworld in its entirety but I am still playing through the remastered Homeworld 2. I have also played a variety of matches in the new multiplayer mode as well.
Follow me on Twitter and YouTube. I also manage Mecha Damashii.
Read my Forbes blog here.
